After heavy rain, in February 2013 the spoil heap (seen on the right) at Hatfield Colliery became dangerously unstable. Over the years, it had encroached far too close to the adjacent railway tracks and had been allowed to grow to an unmanageable size. With an inevitability only realised in hindsight, a slippage of thousands of tons of semi-liquid coal spoil slid towards the tracks, raising the track bed high into the air and buckling the lines. At least one train had a fortunate escape passing the scene seconds before the landslip. After some fourteen months and with a major engineering operation completed, all has returned to normality. Tens of thousands of tons of spoil have been removed and the heap now has a much lower and more gentle profile. 'Oliver Cromwell' passes by gracefully as the 'East Riding Special' heads out of South Yorkshire into East Yorkshire and onward to the coastal towns of Bridlington, Filey and eventually Scarborough.
